Newswatch 16’s Mackenzie Aucker sat down with him to hear about how he was able to help a new mom give birth over the phone.
FLEMINGTON, Pa. — 9-1-1 dispatchers at the Clinton County Communications Center in Flemington receive hundreds of calls every day, helping people in some of their most trying times, but Monday, January 13th is a day Clinton County 911 telecommunicator Spencer Ross will never forget.
“I can see childbirth, and the actual cards that deal with like the labor and delivery and stuff like that,” said Spencer Ross, Clinton County 911 telecommunicator/dispatcher.
Ross answered a call from an Amish couple who were on the side of the road along Interstate 80 East the couple was on their way to a midwife near Loganton, but the baby wasn’t interested in waiting. Ross quickly flipped through his emergency response guide card for childbirth and jumped into action.
“And I flipped to the corresponding card realized what in the world was going on, kind of walked through, asked how far her contractions were, asked about like water breaking and everything like that—thankfully, they also had like a retired trained midwife on scene, and she was able to help them with some of the more physical aspects of it,” said Ross.
With help from his co-workers, Ross got paramedics on the road to the couple’s location. Less than five minutes into the call, the couple could see the baby’s head.
“I’m continuing to talk them through. He’s doing surprisingly well for having a baby on the side of the road, and thankfully, we get through, and we get the shoulders all out, we get—everything’s going great,t and the baby comes out, and dad says he’s blue, he’s not breathing,” said Ross.
Ross instructed the father-to-be to make sure he could get the baby’s airways cleared. After a minute, Ross heard the baby boy crying. The first paramedic arrived on the scene five minutes later to get the baby cleaned up and onto the now family of three’s next stop. Ross tells us it was a crazy experience he’ll never forget.
“Thankfully, it did happen, and it went well, and I was able to have a nice breathing moment and say okay, I can actually do something good for once, but it was, it was amazing,” said Ross.
Ross would like to hopefully meet the eight-pound, three-ounce, healthy baby boy sometime soon.